


Three Times Merry Looked After Pippin (And One Time He Didn't Need To)

by blanketed_in_stars



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: I'm Sorry Tolkien, M/M, Minas Tirith, The Shire, in which i indulge my fondness for merry shortening pippin to "pip"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 22:21:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5643946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/pseuds/blanketed_in_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In sunshine, rain, and beneath the clouds of war, some things never change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Times Merry Looked After Pippin (And One Time He Didn't Need To)

**Author's Note:**

> A slightly late birthday present for Mr. Tolkien, who unfortunately would probably be pretty horrified, all things considered.

_**One** _

Pippin knows he is about to die. There's a pounding in his chest that tells him so. "I'm sorry," he mumbles. It never hurts to be ready.

Beside him, Merry looks down. "What? Who are you talking to?"

"No one. I'm practicing."

Merry's eyes crinkle like they do when he's happy. But Pippin knows that can't be it, because nobody is cheerful when they're in danger. It must be something else. He watches Merry's gaze flick over the hill, deserted but for them. "What for?"

Pippin shrugs. He doesn't want to say it. The shame is enough already.

With a sigh, Merry gets down on one knee in front of him. "Pippin. Are you practicing for Lobelia?"

It's always a surprise to hear him say her name, instead of the rude nicknames most of the others use. Pippin supposes it's because he's eighteen. At ten, he can't even imagine it. "Maybe."

Merry does laugh this time. "Are you scared?"

He can't pretend otherwise anymore. "A little," he admits. Is that bad? _He's_ been bad, he knows it. "She's going to kill m—us." It is Merry's fault, too, he reminds himself. Over his friend's shoulder, he sees the huge bonnet of Mistress Hatville-Baggins cresting the hill. Lobelia. His legs want to run, but his feet are stuck as if he's standing in the mud of the Brandywine. "There she is," he gasps.

"Oh, dear. She doesn't look happy, does she?" Merry stands up again like a proper young hobbit, but his smile's still twinkling down at Pippin. "All wet still, too."

As Lobelia advances on them, the breath leaves Pippin's lungs. "We're dead," he squeaks.

Merry, so much bigger and stronger, nudges his shoulder. "Don't worry, Pip. I'll look after you."

 

_**Two** _

"Pippin, get that one there, that huge one—"

Pippin twists and reaches, grunting in satisfaction when he grasps the carrot's top. He yanks and falls against the sun-warmed earth. "Got it," he says, and hands it to Merry, careful to keep his head down. "Do you see anyone?"

"No." Merry gets on his elbows for a better look, and shakes his head. "No, we're safe for now. Let's keep going."

They crawl forward a few feet and start again. The heat of the day makes Pippin sweat between his shoulder blades, and he's sure there's a beetle in his trousers, but Merry sticks a carrot in front of his nose and uses the green fringe to give himself bushy eyebrows. "Look, Pip, I'm Gandalf."

Pippin snorts and inhales dirt. He grabs the carrot. “Got any spells to get us out of here?” he asks, stowing it in their bag.

Merry gives him a quizzical look.

“It’s just,” Pippin says, “Farmer Maggot’s coming down the path.”

“What?” Merry gasps. He whips his head around to stare. “I don’t see him.”

Pippin snickers. “Made you look.”

“Why,” Merry says, “you little—” He lunges for Pippin; since they’re both already lying flat on the ground, he only succeeds in knocking Pippin’s face into the dirt. While Pippin’s blinking dust from his eyes, Merry rolls closer and starts poking at him, jabbing fingers into his ribs—

“Oh!” Pippin yelps, still struggling to see clearly. “Merry, you’d better—you’d better not—”

“Afraid I’ll break the carrots?” Merry asks. “‘Cause you’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

“No,” Pippin wheezes, “it’s Farmer Maggot—”

“I’m not falling for that again, not five seconds after—”

_“No, Merry, he’s right there—”_

And it seems Merry hears the footsteps, because without pausing to look behind, he leaps to his feet, tugging Pippin up with him. He dashes away across the fields.

Pippin tries to follow, he does, but there’s still dirt trapped beneath one eyelid. Tears stream down his face and he rubs at his stinging eyes, but he still can’t see. “Merry!” he cries, laughing giddily as he stumbles in what he hopes is the right direction. “Help!” He can hear the farmer behind him, running footsteps getting closer—

“Here,” Merry gasps in his ear, grabbing his hand and pulling him along. Pippin can’t see, but he doesn’t need to, because Merry shouts _left!_ and _right!_ and _jump!_ when they get to the fence—and Pippin follows, trusting completely in the hand clutching his.

 

_**Three** _

The bright spring green of the hills looks better in rain. At least, that’s what Pippin tells himself as he stares out at the torrential downpour. His head aches, he’s breathing funny, and he can’t believe it took until April for him to get sick—if he can wait that long, he reasons, why can’t he just stay healthy?

With the ferns and flowers all flattened beneath the onslaught, positive thinking doesn’t really help lift his gloomy mood. Spring colds are worse than winter ones, he thinks, leaning his head against the cool glass of the window. It’s the season for inhaling great lungfuls of fresh, new air, even if it is raining—not hacking and coughing inside where every breath tastes stuffy.

“Back in bed,” Merry orders, dripping on the mat as he takes off his coat. “You’ll only get worse if you spend all day by the window.”

“I can’t help it,” Pippin says. “I want to go outside.” But he drags himself reluctantly back to the armchair and settles down into the nest of blankets again. He watches Merry vanish into the kitchen. “What’s it like out there?” he calls.

“Wet,” comes Merry’s reply. He appears holding a bowl of soup, steaming hot enough that Pippin knows he must have carried a jug of the stuff from his own home. He brings the bowl over to Pippin and hands him a spoon. “Cheer up, Pip,” he sighs, pulling up a stool to sit beside him. “You don’t want to be out in that storm.”

“Maybe I do,” Pippin tells him, but it’s mostly contrariness, and Merry knows it. The soup is very good.

Merry smiles. “Are you feeling any better today?”

Pippin sniffs. “A little.” He doesn’t say it, but he feels almost well again every time Merry walks through the door. It doesn’t stop his pounding head or stuffy nose, but it brightens everything about the world. He’s never been able to get the words out on that subject, though, so he just adds, “Good soup.”

“Thanks.” Merry reaches out and tucks the edge of one of the blankets more securely around Pippin’s feet. Then, for some reason, his face turns pink. He bites his lip. “Pippin,” he says, his hand still touching Pippin’s toes, “I—”

But Pippin breaks out in a coughing fit at that exact moment. By the time his throat is clear again, Merry seems to have changed his mind. He hands Pippin a glass of water. “What would I do without you?” Pippin rasps, taking it.

Merry chuckles. “You’d get yourself into some awful trouble, I should think.” He grins. “Lucky for you, I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

 

_**And one time he didn’t need to…** _

Pippin is freezing, but not from the outside, though the sun isn’t up yet and the cold night air still prickles against his skin. It’s the fear, gripping and everywhere, that sends ice flooding his lungs and freezing his blood in his veins.

The bodies of oliphants and wargs hide them from view, piled upon the field as they are, but he can hear voices calling to each other—counting and marking the dead. “Help!” he cries. It comes out as little more than a breathless squeak. He looks at Merry in his arms and nearly falls, he is so pale and seems so far gone already. His muscles burning, Pippin staggers out into view of Theoden’s remaining riders, who take one look at him and rush forward to relieve him of his burden—relieve him, and rip him in two.

He follows them back to the city, across the plain strewn with the dead and dying. Follows them through streets of white stone turned gray and scarlet, through arches and up stairs and down long halls echoing with grief. By this point Pippin is certain that Merry is already dead—his head lolls and one arm hangs limply down, and he is surely dead.

But he isn’t. Not yet. They lay him on a straw pallet on the floor in the corner of a great hall, and one of the riders tells Pippin that the healers will reach them as soon as possible. And then they return to the field, leaving Pippin stranded and more terrified than he can ever remember being in his bright, happy, rather small life.

He sits on the hard stone and holds Merry’s hand. He wipes the blood from Merry’s mouth with his own cloak. When someone brings around a pail of water, he rips the hem of his tunic and places it on Merry’s brow—that should help, he thinks, and pretends for an hour that he can see a change.

A healer arrives. Several seconds pass before Pippin realizes that it’s Aragorn, covered in blood and grime and the same white dust that coats the city. “Can you save him?” he asks. He is breathless with fear.

“I can,” Aragorn says. There’s a surety in his voice that Pippin doesn’t remember from before. But so much has happened, so many changes wrought in them both, that he only cares that as Aragorn moves away, Merry opens his eyes.

“You didn’t leave,” he whispers.

The hall is filled with a tumult of voices, but Pippin hears him as clearly as if they were alone. For all he’s aware of his surroundings, they could be. “Of course I didn’t,” he replies, his heart pressing on his throat to make his voice tremble. “I said I’d look after you, and I will.”

Merry smiles. It’s weak and he’s still pale as the city itself, but he does smile, and it brings back the memory of spring and life and long afternoons spent in the sun, so far away from here. “I know, Pip.” He reaches out and their fingers touch, twine together. “I always knew.”


End file.
